


In another time, I will remember us

by mariathepenguin



Category: Portrait de la jeune fille en feu | Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Reincarnation, Soulmate AU, it's fine though!, technical character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24124519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariathepenguin/pseuds/mariathepenguin
Summary: Lives and lives and lives, jumbled together like discarded christmas lights, flickering on and off at random until she’s sure that her brain can’t hold any more. She and Marianne are happy, sometimes, when the fates line up just right. Once they live their lives on an island, in a tiny village, and they raise their own goats. In another, they grow tulips and everything smells of flowers, always. Sometimes, no, not so happy.Héloïse remembers. Marianne doesn't.
Relationships: Héloïse/Marianne (Portrait of a Lady on Fire)
Comments: 53
Kudos: 174





	In another time, I will remember us

**Author's Note:**

> This movie has consumed me.
> 
> Title taken from Sappho (someone, I tell you, in another time will remember us).

**113, Ravenna,** **Emilia-Romagna**

_ I can’t - I don’t know what order it all goes in. _

_ Cool hands on her neck. She keeps her eyes squeezed tight. _

_ Just tell me what you can. _

The first time they know each other, Marianne is not Marianne, of course. She won’t be Marianne for quite a while. But Héloïse thinks of her that way even now, as she thinks of herself as Héloïse, even with centuries of love and blood and loss they have lived through.

But no; she is getting ahead of herself.

That first time, Marianne is Maia and Héloïse is Selene, and both of their fathers work under the fiscal procurator for the city of Ravenna. Marianne’s father is in charge of maintaining the Emperor’s new aqueduct, and Héloïse’s father controls all the tax revenue from every citizen. They live in the same part of the city, and have known each other all their lives.

Today, her father, as well as all the other mid-to high ranking government officials have been invited to celebrate the procurator’s daughter’s engagement, and he is taking Héloïse with him. Outside excursions are becoming rarer and rarer the older she becomes, and she is happy to go. Her father leaves almost immediately to socialise with his friends and workmates, and she wanders through small groups of chattering people, too restless to talk with the few people she recognises.

She is in the back near the wall, admiring a blooming honeysuckle plant, when she feels a gentle hand on her elbow.

“Hello,” a soft voice says, and she whirls around. She can feel a smile tugging at her lips, but she suppresses it with effort.

“I have been waiting,” Héloïse says severely. “I have been expiring of boredom without you.”

“A terrible way to go,” Marianne agrees, but those storm eyes of hers are dancing as she stands beside Héloïse. “Did I come in time to save you?”

“We shall have to see,” Héloïse says, and the grin breaks through, before she can stop it, growing only wider as Marianne’s face lights up.

Yes, Héloïse would say that they were friends. Héloïse doesn’t have many, but friendship is happiness, isn’t it? Happiness that shines out of the eyes of another and to you, solid enough to take into yourself, so that the afternoon spent in the procurator’s home passes in less than a breath?

All her life, Marianne has been this happiness to her, and that’s what friendship is, Héloïse thinks. 

Marianne comes to her home for a few of her lessons three times a week, a compromise between her father, who wanted her to have a private tutor, and Héloïse, who had wanted to attend one of the girls’ schools in the city proper. This morning they have spinning and etiquette, and Marianne appears at the gates alone. Usually one of her brothers escorts her to the villa, but today all Héloïse can see from the atrium is a lone dark head. She wrestles with fondness and jealousy in equal measure. She has never left her home unattended. 

“Hello,” Marianne says, and presses a warm kiss onto Héloïse’s cheek, at the hinge of her jaw. Fondness wins the battle abruptly, and Héloïse holds onto her arm for balance. 

Usually her spinning is unremarkable at best, but today it is something truly terrible. Her loom seems to be fighting her, the thread seems to leap from her fingers, and her likeness of Diana looks more like a leering demon. When the tutor leaves, Héloïse can only slink to her room, aware that Marianne is behind her but too enwrapped in misery to care. 

When Marianne enters her room a short while later, she finds Héloïse curled up in her bed, face turned away. With only a small hesitation, she approaches and climbs onto the bed behind her, bracketing their bodies. This is a new thing, and it startles Héloïse enough that she stops chewing at her mouth. Marianne’s arm is a slight but very definite presence around her waist, her fingers playing with the decorative threads on her stola.

“I hate when you are unhappy,” Marianne says. Héloïse doesn’t know what to say, except she is starting to feel like a thread on a loom herself, guided by an unseen, clumsy hand.

“Aelia is getting married,” she says, and Marianne nods.

“I heard,” she says. “Otho told me when I went to the market yesterday.” A pause, and she can feel Marianne breathe into her hair. “Is she happy?” Héloïse snorts.

“She’s Aelia. She knows her duty. And she loves Papa and won’t fight him.” Outside her window, a bird is fluttering its wings, trying to land on a too-small branch.

“You’re angry with her,” Marianne says.

“No. Yes. No,” Héloïse huffs and sniffles. 

Aelia first, then her, and one day her children, all woven into a tapestry that they will never see. She will be her mother, then her grandmother, and one day her bones will be dust and her life will be done. 

She wants to tell Marianne that. She knows she would understand, but she doesn’t know what else will come spilling out if she opens her mouth.

“We’re no longer children,” she says instead, and turns to face Marianne. This close, Héloïse can see a delicate vein that runs up her temple, the wisps of hair that escape by her ears. Marianne’s arm is still around her. 

“And soon,” she continues, “We will be married off into other homes. And I won’t see you again.”

She is a child still, for a year or so longer, and her life is obedience and learning, honeybread stolen from the kitchens and her mother’s kisses pressed against her cheek. The previous night, her mother had told her that Marianne is part of childhood also, that in a decade all of this eaten happiness will be a faded memory that she will stumble upon from time to time, like a weathered statue on a forgotten terrace.

Héloïse cannot imagine it, even as she watches Aelia. Her sister is only a few years older than she and already she has morphed into a new creature, quiet and compliant. Her father calls it maturity but to Héloïse it seems like a slow inward collapse, and she bites her lip hard.

Marianne sees it, and tightens her grip on Héloïse’s waist. 

“You don’t-” she starts, and stops. Marianne’s father is a widower with three sons and a daughter who is the image of his beloved wife. He cannot refuse her anything, and bends to her whims with nothing more than a rueful smile. This permissiveness is a sore point for Héloïse, and Marianne, sensitive as she is, avoids mentioning it when possible.

“You must fall in love with someone in Ravenna, then,” Marianne says. “So we can see each other every day.”

“Maybe,” Héloïse says, not quite ready to be cheered, and Marianne moves her hand from her waist to settle at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. Her palm is soft and smooth, with calluses on the tips of her fingers. Héloïse knows that hand, has held it more times that she can ever recall, but in this moment it is a foreign visitor, hesitating before alighting on her skin.

“Or you can marry Antonio, and come and live in our house.” 

“I would sneak off to your room, and you can tell me your boring stories about Plato to put me to sleep.”

“Hmmph,” Marianne says, but that hand, that stranger, does not leave her skin. Héloïse hesitates, follows a half-acknowledged impulse, and leans in, slowly enough that she can see Marianne’s pupils dilate, and then their mouths are together, trembling.

It doesn’t last more than a few moments, but her heart is beating out of her chest when she leans back. She keeps her eyes focused on the line of skin peeking out from Marianne’s collar, desperately afraid of what she will see if she looks up. Confusion, maybe, or disgust.

But there is only Marianne, still, whose hand is still on her neck even as she stares, wide eyed, looking so like a startled bird that Héloïse can only laugh. Suddenly brave, she loops her own arm around Marianne.

“Or I could marry  _ you _ ,” she suggests, and Marianne laughs, bright as a bell, and kisses her again, and again.

*

For all her shyness, Marianne has always been a better liar than Héloïse, who often finds the truth bursting from her lips as her brain is attempting to construct a better story. Marianne tells calm, direct lies, barely a ripple on her face, as Héloïse fists her fingers in her stola to keep calm.

She is grateful for this when her mother bursts into her room a short while later. They are not kissing anymore, but sitting on the low couch by the window, and Héloïse’s hand has found its way onto Marianne’s thigh as Marianne’s fingers draw lines on her arm. They can’t quite look at each other, but they can’t move away either. Héloïse contents herself with glances; of Marianne’s neat ears, the fine hairs on her arms, the bend of her neck where she had put her mouth just before.

When her mother comes in, Héloïse’s mind is caught in guilty imaginings of that neck - what it would taste like if she were to kiss it now, if Marianne would gasp again, if she would feel her pulse beating under her lips - and she can only stare as she is scolded for being surly with her teachers.

“It was my fault,” Marianne breaks in, just as her mother settles in for a thorough upbraiding. “My courses came this morning, and I felt faint. Héloïse was worried about me.”

Her mother likes Marianne, everyone likes Marianne, though perhaps not as much as Héloïse, and she accepts the story, telling Marianne she will send a girl in with a tea for her.

No more time for kissing, then. Time for tea, maybe, and a return of her hand to Marianne’s soft thigh.

*

Childhood is brought to an abrupt end by the death of Marianne’s father. He sustains a deep wound from a construction accident at the aqueduct. It festers, and in less than a week he is gone. She visits Marianne, who is pale-faced and blank-eyed, whenever she can. She holds her when Marianne lets her, stroking her hair, murmuring whatever occurs to her into her ears. Marianne doesn’t speak, only holds on tight to Héloïse, fingers biting into her flesh. 

Things happen quickly. Marianne’s older brother goes back to Rome to finish his studies, and it is decided that she cannot live alone with her two younger brothers. She tells Héloïse that they are going to live with an aunt in Ausculum, and Héloïse feels the tapestry drawing her in.

Still, she has to be brave for Marianne, who is shaking like she has been sleeping in snow, too-thin fingers clasped in Héloïse’s, eyes burning into hers. So she kisses her - the first time since that first time - and wraps an arm around her, and presses their foreheads together.

Her parents won’t hear of Marianne coming to live with them. They say she has family, that they can’t keep them apart. She rages until they threaten to stop allowing her to visit altogether, and cries instead, hard enough that she frightens away all the birds outside her window.

They say their formal goodbyes on the day before Marianne is supposed to leave. That night, Héloïse pulls on her darkest cloak, slips out of her window, and climbs her first ever tree, shimmying until she is over the compound wall and dangling over the street outside. 

She narrowly avoids landing in a puddle, and cowers against the wall at the almost-total darkness of the narrow streets. She’s never been outside alone, and she is abruptly terrified, but she can’t allow herself to turn back now.

Marianne doesn’t live far, even on foot, but it takes twice as long to get there when she keeps jumping at shadows. Still, she gets there, heart in her hands, and lets herself in through the postern door which is often left unlocked, as one of Marianne’s brothers had told her once, when he was trying to show off.

She gets a little lost finding her way up onto the main floors, but her luck holds out, and she creeps her way to Marianne’s room. She cracks the door open to see Marianne wide awake at her window, eyes like saucers until she recognises her.

“Héloïse! What-” she is speechless, and Héloïse allows herself a little grin, enjoying the victory of her adventure, until she sees that Marianne’s eyes are red rimmed.

“You’ve been crying,” she says, dismayed but not surprised, and Marianne waves a hand dismissively.

“You’re here. How - did you walk?” 

“Yes,” she says. “I had to see you.” 

Marianne is still staring, so it seems she must take the lead. She sits on the edge of Marianne’s bed, noting how bare it is that all her things are packed away, and swallows a pang of sadness.

“What is your aunt like? Do you remember her?”

Marianne shrugs. “Not really. She came to visit when I was small. She sends gifts every now and then.” Héloïse looks away.

“I hope she is kind to you.” Marianne barks out a laugh.

“I’m not even thinking about that.”

Nothing hurts quite like seeing misery on Marianne’s neat features, and Héloïse blinks helplessly, fingers twitching, wanting to do  _ something. _

“Let’s not talk about that,” Marianne says, and smiles. It’s small, but there, and Héloïse smiles reflexively in return. “You are here. Brave girl. Let’s not waste time.”

Héloïse leaves just before dawn, tear-streaked and heart aching. She scrapes her knees scrambling back over the wall into her own compound, but she doesn’t care. Her first and best friend is gone. But she’ll always be that, no matter what the rest of their lives hold.

  
  


**1368, Lille, Hauts-de-France**

_ Then what? _

_ Then - she laughs, just a little. You pulled me out of a road. _

This time, Héloïse cannot quite remember what their names were. She was Marguerite, maybe, which is close enough to Marianne that it is bothersome when Marianne is fixed in her head as Marianne, and besides the difficulty of teasing apart all these small details when her head is stuffed with myriads seems less than a waste of time.

She just knows Marianne, even then, when they are in a different place and the world is a little less beautiful. The streets are deserted, most people too afraid of the pestilence to be outside even though the King has lifted the restrictions on movement.

She sees Marianne bartering for wheat from Jacqueline’s stall, one of the few open, and thinks,  _ ah, yes,  _ at that tickle of recognition, the tread of a loved one’s foot behind a closed door. 

She has no reason to speak with her, except that whisper that even now is lifting the hairs at the back of her neck, but even so she is propelled forward, mind stumbling for a reason, and so she is standing in the middle of the street when a cart piled high with firewood whips past, much too fast, clipping her hip and knocking her down.

Marianne is at her side in moments, heaving her up with surprising strength.

“Are you alright?” she says, and frowns over the grazes on Héloïse’s hands. Pain trickles into her awareness at Marianne’s attentions, and she winces at the soreness in her side and shoulder.

“That son of a diseased mule,” Marianne is muttering, as a hand runs along her arm she had landed on, ostensibly checking for damage. The juxtaposition between the very real warmth and pressure of her hand against Héloïse and the barely-there imprint of  _ something _ makes her head spin. Or maybe it’s just the hit on the head from the cobblestones.

Marianne looks at her again, eyes sharpening, and introduces herself, before inviting Héloïse to her home for a rest and warm drink.

“Our home is not far from here,” Marianne says, “and the patrols do not go there often.” Héloïse agrees, for she really is quite dizzy, and she allows Marianne to place a hand underneath her elbow to support her.

Marianne’s home is a stone house on the west side of the river Deûle, close enough to the water that the stink of the town abates slightly, but far enough away that they cannot hear the sounds of the canal. 

She is led to a comfortable chair in the hall, near a fireplace, and dutifully sips at the warm drink handed to her. She’s not truly injured, bar a few small scrapes, but she finds that she can’t quite make her excuses and leave.

It’s not awkward, exactly, but their timing is off. They interrupt each other. Héloïse instead asks about her family, and receives the answers she had already gleaned by looking about the neatly kept hall: an embroidered tapestry of coat of arms hanging from one of the walls, the Flemish vowels in Marianne’s French.

Marianne’s face is animated when she talks, and she doesn’t smile, but her eyes lighten when she speaks of her family.

“Papa is staying with a friend by the docks to help keep order,” Marianne says, “and my brother’s wife is having her first child. Maman has gone to help her.”

“Oh,” Héloïse says, distracted enough that she forgets to be awkward, “my mother is a midwife.” 

It doesn’t mean all that much- midwives are not especially rare, especially in a large town like Lille, but the idea that Héloïse’s mother may be with Marianne’s family, as the two of them sit here together, lightens her heart.

“You look better,” Marianne observes, and she starts. 

“I - yes,” she says, and smiles. Do Marianne’s cheeks pinken slightly, or is it just the shadow of the flame on her cheek?

Héloïse does not want to leave, but the church bells are calling for vespers and her parents will worry. Instead she invites Marianne to come to her home for dinner.

Marianne does come, and she brings her mother who looks just like her, only with finer lines around her eyes and dark blue eyes instead of hazel. Her mother talks more, too, and together with Héloïse’s parents, shares her strong opinions on everything from how the city governors are handling the burials to whether or not the cloth fair should be allowed to proceed this year.

Marianne touches the back of her hand under the table. Without thinking, Héloïse turns her hand over so that their palms are touching. Marianne looks down, and in the uncertain light of the candles all Héloïse can see is that her eyes flutter quickly, once.

“I don’t think they’re going to stop anytime soon,” she says quietly, and laughs as Héloïse’s father gesticulates widely, almost knocking the wine jug over. 

“We may have created a monster,” Héloïse agrees, as the conversation pivots sharply into discussion of taxation of wheat. “Do you want to go outside?”

They excuse themselves quietly, and Héloïse leads her out of the dining room and past Papa’s workshop, to the small space in the back where they have their vegetable garden. The garden is one of Héloïse’s joys, each row carefully pruned and tended. Her plants are barely visible even in the full moon, but she can see the outlines of her new pea plants, looking green and healthy even in the pale light.

She feels Marianne’s stare even before she turns to look at her, and enjoys the brief surprise on her face before she schools it into a more neutral expression. It’s a scratchingly familiar look, and she frowns.

“Your family is new to Lille,” she says, half asking. 

“Yes,” Marianne says, half caught between embarrassment for having been caught staring and confusion. “My parents and I moved because the Duke - ”

“- Wanted an overseer at the ports, your mother said. Sorry,” Héloïse says, and feels her cheeks heat. “I was just wondering if maybe we had met before.” Marianne smiles, the white flash of her teeth briefly mesmerising.

“I would have remembered if I’d met you before,” she says, and there is that flutter again, as if something has taken root beneath her breastbone and is just beginning to grow. A brush of their hands, again, and this time Héloïse holds her hand firmly, hesitating as their fingers twine together. Maybe she’s unwell. Maybe that’s why her head feels so light as Marianne, eyes dark, flicks her eyes down to her mouth, so fast that she wouldn’t have noticed if her own face had not somehow moved closer.

She has already made up her mind to kiss her when a sudden blaze of light covers them. She pulls away and squints at the open back door, her father’s silhouette outlined.

“There you are!” Her father is cheerily drunk, and doesn’t seem to notice their twined fingers, or Marianne’s quick breathing. She gives the hand a quick squeeze before letting go. “Come in ladies, before you freeze.”

“No one freezes in spring, Papa,” she says, but walks towards the house anyway. Marianne is quiet behind her. Héloïse can feel her stare like a hand at the nape of her neck.

She is feeling brave when Marianne and her mother leave, and when they say goodbye she kisses slightly lower than is customary, almost at the hinge of her jaw. She can smell mint and thyme in the curling hair at Marianne’s ear, and steps back before her bravery can take her further.

*

Lille is still quiet, the governors disallowing movement between cities, and so it is not difficult to find quiet places to spend time together. Their favourite is a spot on the river, where a small rise in the land and a copse of trees have formed a tiny, private meadow. Héloïse digs up an old blanket, and Marianne brings soft bread and sharp cheeses, and before she knows it the hours have escaped them and they must return to their homes. 

Marianne continues to offer her her hand to hold. She soon discovers what else Marianne has to offer, such as her smile, which does not come easily and must be teased out like a rabbit in its den, and the treasure trove of stories that she can recite from memory. 

She is laying with her head in Marianne’s lap - which is a new piece of bravery she had undertaken only that day - deeply aware of the warmth of the thighs beneath her head, the smell of Marianne, her hand, as always, trapped in Marianne’s.

“You are not listening.” She tears her eyes away from their hands, which she had been watching idly. She hadn’t even realised she was doing that.

“I am,” she insists. “The princess was despairing of her fate as a she-bear. Although I don’t understand why.”

“Oh?” Slim fingers escape her grip and wander up to encircle her wrist. She tries not to think about it.

“Yes. Living in the woods, warm all the time, eating berries. It could be worse.” She gets a laugh, and treasures it.

“So, very similar to us as we are now.” They had found a clutch of strawberries on their way here, and their fingers are still stained red.

“I suppose,” Héloïse says, aware that Marianne’s face is closer, eyes searching Héloïse’s face, lighting on her lips before flitting off. She bites her lip, just to see what will happen, and flushes when Marianne does.

They work in concert, as if they have rehearsed it: Héloïse lifts herself out of Marianne’s lap, and the hand that was on her arm curves around her back to support her, and when she kisses her, Marianne’s hand is already in her hair, thumb stroking at her cheek.

They kiss, and kiss, and Héloïse tastes strawberries and sunlight, and she shivers like they are in deep winter and heats up until she is sure her clothes will burn off her, and all the while Marianne is holding her, sighing into her mouth, breaking away to dot kisses at the line of her jaw. 

It was everything she was hoping it would be, everything she was afraid of, and she doesn’t see how they will stop.

By the time she returns home, lips sensitive and pink marks blooming at her shoulders and chest, just below the line of her dress, she has a plan. The next day she asks her mother to take her as an apprentice and teach her to be a midwife. She’s going to have to have a skill, before she allows any of her wild hopes to take root.

*

Her mother is suspicious. Héloïse has never shown any interest in midwifery before. But Héloïse knows how to be patient when she has to be, and can be very useful when necessary, and her mother, who has always wanted to know her better, relents.

“I won’t be easy on you,” she warns. “This is an important job.” Héloïse nods, and learns as best she can, and finds purpose in the learning to feel the outlines of tiny bodies within their mothers, turning them and guiding them and watching new eyes open. She grows used to the salt-smell and scream of birth, the death that stalks just behind. She learns about herbs and poultices from her mother and her mother’s friends, and plants them in her little garden.

She tells it to Marianne in their meadow. They have discovered several other pastimes, other than the kissing, and Marianne’s eyes blink like a contented cat in the aftermath, barely reacting as Héloïse draws aimless circles at the top of her thighs.

They don’t quite dare to be naked, but Marianne’s dress is rucked up to her thighs, and she allows them to stay parted wantonly as Héloïse spreads her fingers apart, brushing against the soft skin and curly hair at her centre.  _ That _ gets more of a reaction, and she does it again, inching her hand down slowly until Marianne gasps.

She had been planning to tease her. She likes when Marianne gets impatient and grasps at her to pull her closer, fists her hands in her hair, but she is feeling unaccountably tender, and she shuffles up to kiss her, and taste her moans as they fall out of her mouth. She goes on, gently, until Marianne’s eyes screw shut and she lets out a sobbing gasp, her mouth open beneath Héloïse’s as she presses forward to get as close as she can.

After, when the sun has begun to set, Marianne says, “so you have a trade.”

“Of sorts.” She has a grass stain on her dress. Her mother will notice. Marianne holds her hands from where they are fussing at it.

“You have a trade, and you brought me blackberries you picked yourself.” Marianne’s eyes are dancing, her berry-stained mouth twitching at the corners. “I am beginning to feel courted.”

“As you should.” She shoots her a mock severe look. “I have been working very hard.”

“I noticed,” Marianne says, and trails her index finger along the inside of Héloïse’s wrist, as if one day Héloïse will be able to call at her parents house and ask for her hand. 

*

Héloïse’s plan is accelerated rapidly when the Duke of Burgundy takes Lille back under Flemish rule. The city is still struggling with trade after the ravages of the pestilence, and this next move spells the end for Héloïse’s father’s workshop. 

“No one can afford silver,” he says. “People can barely afford bread for their homes.” Cold foreboding curls in her stomach at the thought, and sure enough, a few days later, he announces that they will be moving back South, closer to their hometown near Paris. Her family had only moved North fifteen years ago to take advantage of Lille’s closeness to the Glasebache pits, but now there are rumours that the Duke is determined to reinvigorate the city by bolstering trade, and he will prioritise long-time citizens of the town, not relative newcomers with few connections. 

“I’m staying.” She isn’t angry. In fact a curious sense of calm has come over her. Her parents blink.

“Why?” Her father is agape. 

“This is my home,” she says, and his eyes narrow. There is a one sided fight in which his face gets redder and redder as the wine jug empties, she remains calm, and her mother watches them both.

She has barely been home the past several months, always working with her mother or away with Marianne, and she thinks he has forgotten, or tried to forget, how obdurate she can be when she is determined. He shouldn’t be, though. She got it from him.

In the end, she goes to bed shaken. Her mother comes into her room just as she has started to fall asleep, features made unsteady by the leaping flame of the candle in her hand. She sits by Héloïse’s bed and rests her hand on the blanket by her shoulder. Héloïse stares determinedly at the ceiling.

“That’s why you wanted me to train you,” her mother says quietly. She doesn’t sound angry, and the candlelight is too unsteady for Héloïse to see her face.

“I’m not leaving,” she says. 

“Is…” the question hovers on the tip of her mother’s tongue, before she exhales and swallows it back, and Héloïse finally tears her eyes from the ceiling.

They lock eyes. Her mother had always favoured her older brothers, even after they had left to fight, and her father had favoured silversmithing. Héloïse had never really minded, but in this moment she looks into her mother’s eyes - green, like hers, - and begs for any piece of maternal mercy that she can grant her.

Her mother looks away. “I’ll speak to your father,” she says, and Héloïse is left in the dark.

*

She is at Marianne’s home as soon as the sun rises, and the maid lets her in. Héloïse is a common enough occurence that she walks the steps to Marianne’s room without hesitation. She closes the door behind her and observes the sleeping lump on the bed before kicking off her shoes and climbing in.

Marianne’s eyes fly open at the movement, and only widen further when she sees Héloïse in her bed.

“Wh… what are you doing?” Marianne’s hands are tangled in the blankets, so Héloïse loops an arm around her still-covered shoulders and pulls her in, planting a kiss on her forehead.

“My parents are moving back to Paris,” she says, and Marianne’s body goes as stiff as a board. 

“No,” she whispers, eyes wild, and worms a hand out of her tangled blankets to grip Héloïse’s upper arm. “No, you have to stay.” Héloïse grins wider.

“I said my parents were going. I didn’t say I was going with them.” 

She will never tire of Marianne’s face, of the constant, mesmerising interplay of the features she had watched, then touched. Marianne’s eyes are cloaked in despair, then her brow furrows in confusion at Héloïse’s proclamation and obvious good cheer, then a slow dawning happiness that makes her eyes glow.

“You mean…” she doesn’t want to say it, Héloïse can see, in case it turns out that she is wrong. She only lets her waver for a few more moments before she helps her.

“I’m staying,” she says. “I’m not going anywhere.” Marianne doesn’t say anything, only keeps staring. Héloïse is abruptly self-conscious, and tries to shuffle away. 

“Unless-” she has touched every inch of Marianne’s body that was available to her in the meadow, and been touched in return. She knows her good and bad moods, her silly childhood secrets and the one very large one. But they had never really talked about the future. Not when all the conventional paths were closed to them. Marianne had simply refused the few suits that had come her way, and Héloïse, well. Héloïse had learned a trade.

“Do you want me to stay?” She feels strangely vulnerable, even though Marianne is the half-asleep one, tangled up in her chemise, hair coming out of its nighttime braid. Marianne looks at her as if she has gone mad.

“Yes,” she says, and lunges forward to kiss her. “Yes, yes, yes.” They don’t kiss for long, aware of the danger, but that kiss brands itself into her all the same.

*

Her parents leave a few months later, just before autumn. She takes a spare room with Madame Lesassier, an older midwife who will give her room and board in exchange for assistance. She cries hard when her parents leave. Marianne sits with her on her little pallet and kisses her tears away, and then she cries because Marianne is there to kiss her.

She comes to stay in Marianne’s home when her mother becomes deathly ill. Héloïse knows enough of herbs to help a little. It’s an awful few weeks before she recovers, spent by her bedside, keeping her clean and fed and trying to cool her feverish body. At the end of it, her mother is alive but weaker than she was before, something in Marianne has cracked just a little, and her father stands at the doorways and prays.

She never leaves. Marianne’s mother asks her to stay, and gives her a room near Marianne’s. She spends very little time in it. 

They are lucky, both younger sisters of brothers who are tasked with carrying out the family expectations. Marianne’s family is noble, but not important enough that she can be used to forge an important alliance, and Héloïse’s parents had let her go. They are left in peace for the most part, to sleep with their heads on the same pillow and look for more secret meadows.

Marianne’s parents die, one after the other, and she cries the way Héloïse had, and Marianne’s brothers agree to allow her the house in the city while they take possession of the manors in the countryside. 

Life is sweet and warm and nothing like she had thought to hope for. Fine lines start to appear on Marianne’s face, and she smiles and traces the ones on Héloïse’s face when she points them out.

Héloïse is taken by the same illness that almost took Marianne’s mother, and she allows herself to laugh at that, even as she peppers kisses on Marianne’s hair, now streaked with silver.

“You’ll be fine,” she says, and Marianne only cries harder. “I’ll see you again,” she says, knowing with all her heart it is true, even as that heart begins to fail her. 

“Marianne,” she had said, only it hadn’t been Marianne, but her name escapes her. “Remember me.

_ That’s sad. _

_ Not so sad. Not mostly. _

  
  


**1770, Milan, Lombardy**

She had read an old medical book in the convent about the process of cauterisation. Necessary, the book had said, for the healing of the flesh after a wound. The days after Marianne leaves feel like that, simultaneously a fusing shut and an always-open wound. Her mother sees it in her eyes but she doesn’t ask, only talks of Milan as if it were a lover.

She can’t bear to be touched, except by Sophie sometimes, and her mother again keeps her confined. 

But Marianne is in this life, and she will be, too. They can walk it in parallel, if not together. 

The cautery stops burning, but the wound remains. She never wants to leave this island; she can’t stand the sight of it. She refuses to open  _ Metamorphoses _ . Her memory has not begun to fail her yet, not when she can close her eyes and conjure up the exact texture of the hair at the back of Marianne’s neck, the strength of her grip, the small movement she made with her mouth when Héloïse surprised her.

Her husband marries her; she has a son. She loves him desperately, even as she hands him to his father to be held. Her husband names him Amadeo, but she and the servants call him Dito. She whispers French lullabies to his sleeping face. Her husband doesn’t mind when she speaks French, but Marianne had taught her the value of creating a beautiful little world for just her and her loves. 

Her life is busy, if not especially fulfilling. She has the running of the house, the few responsibilities of motherhood not taken over by Dito’s nursemaid, and endless social engagements. She sits for a portrait with her son, who is wary and bored in turns. She takes him for a walk in the market as a reward when the painting is finally completed, hands trembling with what she had done, head swimming at the thought of Marianne.

She has acquaintances, connections, even a true friend, a woman named Nicolette who likes the orchestra as much as Héloïse. She is supposed to accompany Héloïse to the orchestra the night that she hears what Marianne had been trying to play for her on the harpsichord. She is glad she is alone when she feels that half-healed wound being chiselled open with every sweep of the conductor’s wand. Oh, it hurts. But they had been beautiful.

Life goes on. Her son leaves to study in Rome, and she writes to him twice a month. She receives hastily-written and sweet letters that she stores carefully. 

She writes to Marianne, twice. She keeps the first letter, and sends the second. Both are brief. The first is nothing more than an exclamation of feeling, blood spilled in ink form for no one but herself.

_ I know I am luckier than most,  _ she had written _. My husband is not cruel, and my son is clever and bookish and sweet. And handsome, if I can say that without flattering myself overmuch. In all the ways I can find joy in this life, I have. I hope you have done the same. _

She also writes:  _ I have never forgotten. I will never forget.  _

She had never told Marianne that she loved her, and does not write it now. Marianne would know, just as Héloïse knows, and feels it always.

*

She writes the second letter when news of the revolution in France begins to filter into Italy. Marianne’s family is not nobility, but she has sat at enough dinner parties with generals and soldiers to have a dim idea of the kinds of dangers even ordinary folk face in times of revolution.

She refuses to entertain the idea that anything may have happened to her, sharply aware that the knowledge, or hope, that Marianne is out there somewhere, living and happy, is an effective balm for when melancholy descends upon her like a wave, as it does from time to time.

But France is all that anyone can talk about, from the nobles who have distant family and friends there, to their less discreet artist friends who positively salivate at the thought of the ruling class brought low. She doesn’t want to hear it, and allows her husband to make excuses on the fragility of women so she may escape.

Marianne is smart. Resourceful. She was not outwardly bold, but she had come alone with a boatful of men to paint a woman on a lonely island. She snuck into anatomy classes so she could practice sketching the male nude figure. She knew how to terminate a pregnancy. Marianne is smart.

Still, fear twists at her heart like a knife, and she is unable to concentrate on anything. She opens  _ Metamorphoses _ often, and traces the slightly blurred lines of the nude figure. Marianne had got her eyes exactly right, dark and birdlike and curious, the stare that Héloïse had felt like a physical weight on her skin from the first.

Nicolette is still a good friend, with ties in France that Héloïse no longer has, and she asks her to make discreet inquiries to the Durand family, giving her every scrap of information she can remember. Weeks later, she receives a copy of a notice from the Painter’s Guild that Marianne’s father had died seven years prior, and of course they have no record of Marianne herself.

In the end, she buckles, as she always knew she would, and sends a letter to the guild to pass on to the family of the painter Pierre Durand and his family.

It says:

_ Marianne _

_ I was sorry to hear of your father. Know that I remember you, still, and I pray for your safety. If you are in need of aid, the family of my dear friend Nicolette Alessandro-Rossi will be at your service _ . 

She includes Nicolette’s cousin’s address and a letter of introduction. Nicolette’s cousin is a winemaker in Montpellier, and he is willing to help, if needed.

It’s a dry bit of nothing, impersonal and insincere, but the letter may be opened by any number of people along the way, including Marianne’s sisters and mother. There can be no spilling of the heart.

She never receives a reply. It’s not uncommon for letters to disappear on their way to a destination, and such loss is even more likely when sent to such an uncertain address in the middle of such turmoil. Still, it is a hard period for her, and she has had many such already.

*

Her husband dies, Dito marries and moves back into the manor with his pink-cheeked wife, and Héloïse endures. 

One night, more than sixty years after she left Brittany, she feels her chest tighten and then a spreading looseness, as if all her muscles have been unstrung at once. She understands that she is dying, and does not feel fear, only tilts her head so that the light from the full moon falls onto her face.

_ I thought of you,  _ she had said, and Marianne had shivered, and now Héloïse shivers as well, as death embraces her gently. I thought of you, and I had known you, and I will know you again, she thinks, and for a brief, shining moment, she sees them as they have been throughout the ages, linked, always, even when they did not know it, and she smiles as she breathes her last.

  
  


**Everywhere, nowhere**

It’s not all there, all the time. Mostly she goes about her life as normal, and sometimes Marianne is there, and sometimes she isn’t, and sometimes Héloïse remembers but mostly awareness hovers just beneath the surface of her consciousness, like a deep-sea creature that rarely breaches the surface.

Lives and lives and lives, jumbled together like discarded Christmas lights, flickering on and off at random until she’s sure that her brain can’t hold any more. She and Marianne are happy, sometimes, when the fates line up just right. Once they live their lives on an island, in a tiny village, and they raise their own goats. In another, they grow tulips and everything smells of flowers, always. Sometimes, no, not so happy, and she turns the mind away from the memory of the crackle of fire.

Over and over again, Marianne, like a deck of cards with the same face printed on every one, and yes, Héloïse loves her, has loved her, will love her, but she feels as if she will crack open with the weight of all of this living inside her.

And then now she has met Marianne again, and she is drowning in a tidal wave of remembering, and she can’t explain any of it.

Marianne said once that truth didn’t really exist, and maybe it doesn’t, and she is simply spinning out and cracking -    
  


**Present day, Paris,** **Île-de-France**

“- Wait,” Marianne says, exasperated. “That is not what I said.”

Héloïse sniffles. “It was the gist.” her cheeks are hot and her eyes are raw from crying, and she buries her face in Marianne’s shoulder. She doesn’t want to look at her yet. She feels scraped raw, and even the idea that she will look up at Marianne and see disbelief, or worse, pity, in her eyes makes her throat tight.

But Marianne does not fail her. Instead she kisses to the top of Héloïse’s head, and her free hand winds into the hair at the nape of her neck. Héloïse closes her eyes. The cool breeze from Marianne’s bedroom window cools her overwarm skin, and the pillows are just right, and the duvet is warm against her legs. She is tired, and her eyes flutter. But there is still a worry tugging at her, that she will wake tomorrow morning and Marianne will have left, that Marianne  _ will  _ tell her that she is suffering from a breakdown and maybe they should take a step back.

“You’re tense,” Marianne says, rubbing at her back, and there is enough strain in her voice that Héloïse glances up before she can remember to be afraid. Marianne’s face is soft, eyes searching as if she has been waiting for Héloïse to look up all this time, but there’s strain in the corners of her eyes.

Héloïse doesn’t blame her. They had both had the same rare day off - no time in the studio or internship for Marianne, no endless tutorials or shift at the coffeeshop for Héloïse, and they had spent most of it in Marianne’s large and exceedingly comfortable bed.

They had been on their third - maybe fourth - round, making the most of their free day, and Héloïse was out of breath both from the exertion and the effect of what Marianne was doing to her, pinned down by the intense heat of Marianne’s mouth on her, pleasure wending its way up her spine as it peaked at an almost unbearable intensity.

She had been trembling with the aftershocks, vaguely aware that Marianne was kissing her way back up her body, when blinding pain had bloomed in her head. She’s certain she had cried out, although she’s not sure. What she does remember is a dam somewhere inside her breaking as memories had rushed forward like the tide. Marianne had thought she’d hurt her, and only Héloïse’s vice grip around her waist stopped her from vaulting out of bed to call for help.

She’s been silent since, listening as Heloise cobbled together a coherent narrative, only asking the occasional question.

“I’m fine. Better,” she amends, but Marianne’s arms only tighten around her, as if Héloïse may simply float away and disappear. It’s not an unreasonable fear. She is still reeling, the taste of olive oil from a long-ago life lingering on her tongue.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” she says, and Marianne shakes her head. She opens her mouth like she is going to say something, then gives her head a tiny shake and closes it again. Héloïse loves how she telegraphs everything she’s going to do. She loves her, period, and this thought, frustratingly, makes her eyes well with tears, as if she hasn’t done enough crying already.

Poor Marianne looks so alarmed at the idea that Héloïse may start to cry again that she lets out a thick laugh. She cried for what was probably an hour, judging by the dimness of the light coming from the bedroom window, and she’s all cried out. Marianne is pale and quiet, and fear begins to crawl up her spine, despite the warm solidity of the arms around her.

“It’s -” she can’t quite bring herself to say ridiculous. “I’m not asking… I’m not saying… You don’t have to…” Not being able to express herself isn’t something she’s used to, and her hand fists the sheet in frustration. 

Marianne lets her struggle for a few more moments, then supplies; “I don’t have to believe that we have a love that stretches across time and space?” Marianne is smiling, though, and so Héloïse does not feel foolish. She tentatively smiles back. 

“So you don’t think I’m insane,” she says, and smiles to take some of the strain out of her tone. But Marianne only busses a kiss over her forehead, dark hair obscuring her vision for a moment.

“Only in a good way,” Marianne says. Her eyes crinkle with a smile when Héloïse pinches her side lightly, and she looses her grip on Héloïse to reach down and wind their fingers together.

“So, what? You think that I’m some kind of Oracle of Delphi?” she says, not quite sure why she’s prodding now, when they are both still so raw, but there has always been a part of her that likes to push things further than is strictly necessary.

Marianne half-shrugs, and lifts those dark eyebrows.

“I believe that I love you,” she says. “I think I would have loved you no matter when we met.” An inexact answer; Marianne is an expert at equivocation when she puts her mind to it. But it’s enough for now - her eyelids are drooping, her mouth stretched open in a jaw-cracking yawn. She doesn’t want to sleep. She wants to talk more, push just a little bit more, ensure for herself that the tightness at the corners of Marianne’s eyes has truly disappeared, but her body betrays her, and she slips into sleep.

*

She wakes alone, which is not so unusual - Marianne is an early riser by nature, while Héloïse is more inclined to laze in bed, but the sight of the rumpled sheets still sets a low knot of tension under her ribs. 

The sound of shuffling from the other side of the apartment soothes her a little bit, and she rolls onto her stomach, burying her face in her pillow. She’s feeling tense, yes, and a little embarrassed, an emotion that she hadn’t really had the space for the day before. 

Still, the bed can only shelter her for so long. Soon the smell of coffee makes its way to her. Marianne doesn’t drink coffee, she says it makes her too jittery, and so Héloïse follows the gentle summons.

Marianne is sitting at the tiny breakfast nook, sipping on a cup of herbal tea and nibbling at a little piece of toast. Her eyes light up in that gentle way they do when she sees Héloïse - and what a pleasurable surprise that had been, in their first few months of dating, to feel that flutter in her chest as she saw Marianne approaching and watch her eyes shine - and normally she would kiss her good morning, but today she only takes a seat at the table and pours a cup of coffee from the carafe.

Marianne surveys her quietly, before sliding the plate of toast over. Héloïse slathers a generous amount of marmalade on a piece and digs in. Coffee makes life a little better as always, and she sends a small smile across the inches separating her from where Marianne is swiping through something or the other on her iPad. 

Silence; but less uncomfortable and more anticipatory, as if they are waiting for an orchestra to play, but Marianne only puts the iPad away and smiles back. 

“I need to go to the market today,” she says. “Will you come?”

“Yes,” Héloïse replies.

*

Saturdays at the market are never a quiet experience, especially in late spring. Each stall has at least a couple of people around it, and even the sellers that they know don’t have time for more than a quick hello. Marianne buys peaches because she wants to try to make a pie, and Héloïse spends more money than she meant to stocking up on cheese and honey.

She’s just eyeing another package of camembert - she probably has enough already, but it’s her weakness - when a hand descends on the inside of her elbow.

“I’m done,” Marianne says. Héloïse had wandered off while she was inspecting sun-dried tomatoes and fresh mushrooms with the concentration of a war general. Now Marianne is holding two bulging bags that clink whenever she shifts, hand around Héloïse’s arm as though she thinks she may disappear without warning.

Héloïse takes a good look at her, at the paleness of her cheeks and slight shadows under her eyes, and reaches for one of the bags.

“I can carry them,’ Marianne says, half protesting, but she lets Héloïse take it from her as they make their way back to her apartment.

Héloïse has her study group in a couple of hours, and Marianne should go to her internship, but they find themselves moving slowly. Marianne spends twice as long making pasta as she usually does, and Héloïse putters around, ostensibly tidying up but really just orbiting Marianne like a restless star.

They eat, slowly still, feet tangled under the table. Héloïse doesn’t know what to say. She’s stuck between the banal - what they will do that evening, if Marianne has progressed on her latest painting - to the thing they aren’t talking about.

She wants to tell Marianne more, that she knows what Latin sounded like in her mouth, that there was a time where she had hated her father bitterly, that one time she and Héloïse had met only for an hour, at a party somewhere in Prussia. But all she has is scraps and flashes, and she is not convinced that she’s not going insane, and she’s not convinced that Marianne doesn’t think so either.

Marianne looks up suddenly, startling her. 

“I believe you, you know,” she says, and places her fork down in her empty bowl. Héloïse’s is still nearly full.

“What?”

“I was thinking about it. When we were shopping. And I believe you.”

“What convinced you?” Marianne shrugs, a pale shoulder peeking out from under her oversized sweater.

“Nothing.” She takes a breath. “I simply decided to. So you can stop worrying. Or worry less, at least. About telling me things. I can see you want to.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” Marianne ignores her slightly acerbic tone. “You are biting your nails again. You did that when you were trying to decide whether to tell me about your sister.”

Héloïse looks down, and yes, her nails are looking a little ragged.

“So. I will believe you. Because I love you.”

“Then you are indulging me.” She tempers the bitterness in her tone. This is Marianne.

“No. Because I love you, and I trust you, I can extend that trust a little further. If you can promise to stop chewing at your nails and talk to me instead.”

She feels disoriented, as if she is several steps behind a vital conversation.

“Just like that.”

“Yes.” Marianne’s eyes are clear.

“Because you love me.”

“With all of my heart.”

Another leap in the conversation, Héloïse scrambling. Marianne only waits patiently, those dark eyes fixed on hers. Something within her tears loose, and her eyes fill with tears.

“Don’t go. Don’t leave me.”

“Never.” 

She is in Marianne’s arms, again. Well. It’s not like she’ll ever tire of being held by her.

She stays there until her phone begins to ring insistently. She’s going to be late. Marianne will too. The real world beckons, even as they try to form a universe of two.

“Come back for dinner,” Marianne says into her ear, and Héloïse, held gently, helpless, nods.

*

She cooks this time, gratin dauphinois and roast chicken. It’s a comfort food from childhood, one of the few things her mother liked to make for her and Nadine when they were small. Afterwards, they squeeze onto Marianne’s one deck chair on her tiny balcony and look at the stars. 

Marianne sits between her legs, back against her chest, her hands playing with Héloïse’s fingers. She’s still wearing that too-large sweater, and Héloïse leans forward and rests her face in the exposed skin of her shoulder, breathing in deep.

The balcony only looks out onto another small street, but it’s a clear night tonight, enough that she can see the stars usually hidden by the city lights if they tilt their heads back.

“I don’t know what to say,” she confesses eventually.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Marianne says. She stops playing with Héloïse’s hand and folds it across her ribs, so Héloïse can feel her heart beating underneath her fingertips. 

“I don’t know what to say, either,” she continues. The heart under Héloïse’s hands beats just that bit faster.

“Nothing has to change,” Héloïse says. “What would, anyway?” There are always two coasters on the balcony railing, and the shirt that Héloïse is wearing right now smells just like Marianne’s detergent, and Marianne fits in her arms the way she always has. So, nothing  _ must  _ change.

“I just wish I could remember with you,” Marianne says. “I wish you weren’t alone.”

“I’m not,” Héloïse says. “That’s the point, isn’t it? I won’t ever be alone, not for long.” Marianne hums, and her hand comes up to touch Héloïse’s cheek.

“You would be the death of philosophy, if anyone found out,” Marianne says. “Can you imagine what this would do to the free will debate?”

“You think we are destined for each other?” She wrinkles her nose at the idea. It’s romantic, yes, but she doesn’t like the idea of anything, even some all-powerful deity, controlling her fate.

“I don’t know.” Marianne shifts, and snuggles deeper into her arms. “You’ll have to tell me.” 

Marianne there, always, yes. But always there is a hand outstretched, or a question posed, waiting for the other to say yes.

“No,” she says finally. “I think we choose.” Marianne nods, satisfied.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Why?”

“Well, I was the one who introduced myself to you, wasn’t I? You just stared from across the room.”

“I was drunk,” she says, not quite able to work herself up to indignation. “I was getting there!” 

“Still,” Marianne says, and her head tips back on Héloïse’s shoulder. Her eyes are starting to droop. Not surprising, considering the lack of sleep the night before, and all the carbohydrates Héloïse had just fed her. She quietens, and soon she’s is dozing lightly, face turned into Héloïse’s neck so she can feel the occasional flutter of her eyelashes on her neck. Distracting, but Héloïse only holds her closer, and looks at the stars, and wonders if any of those unchanging bodies have noticed her through the ages.

It’s an unseasonably warm spring, but the temperature starts to drop as the moon rises, and even Marianne’s warmth isn’t enough to keep her comfortable. She touches her shoulder, kisses her hair. 

“Marianne.” She doesn’t move. She must have fallen all the way asleep. “Wake up.” She only lolls her head further into Héloïse’s shoulder, her soft lips pressed against her neck. “We are going to freeze.”

Marianne mumbles something, and she represses a shiver. 

“I cannot carry you. You must wake up."

“My name was Agnès,” Marianne says against her neck, so mumbly that it takes a moment for Héloïse to understand. She jerks back, sharply enough that it startles Marianne closer to wakefulness.

“What’s happening?” She sits up fully, twisting to look Héloïse full in the face.

“Why did you say that?” 

“What did I say?” Bleary eyes struggle to focus on her.

She touches her cheek. Feels almost desperate with love. And smiles.

“Nothing. Let’s go to bed.”


End file.
